The present invention relates generally to the field of customer premises equipment ("CPE") for telephone networks, and more specifically to CPE devices capable of interfacing with both telephone and broadband networks.
CPE devices for use in today's telephone network are becoming more intelligent all the time. Today, screen phone-type CPEs permit sophisticated customer services through the telephone network. For example, screen phone-type CPEs interface with today's telephone network elements and other computers to transmit and receive voice and data according to the Analog Display Services Interface ("ADSI") standard. ADSI is an industry standard written by Bellcore, the assignee of the present application. These CPEs, also referred to as "smart phones," receive data and programming information via the telephone network to expand telephone services.
Service providers wishing to modify programming information or send other information to customers prefer to do so during off hours, when telephone traffic is at a minimum and costs are lower. Because CPEs operate with the telephone network, however, to interface with a CPE, a computer or network element must call the CPE in accordance with conventional call processing protocols. Thus, the CPE will ring in response to this call, disturbing the customer. There is some movement toward changing the telephone network elements to allow for an inaudible alert to CPE devices, but those changes are very expensive and years away.
At the same time new CPE devices are being developed, new network elements and services are also being developed. For example, today there exists a big emphasis on developing broadband networks for feeding video information to customers' homes. These broadband networks include, for example, digital asynchronous transfer mode ("ATM") switches to route large amounts of digital information quickly and efficiently. Broadband networks provide yet another source of information for customers and customer services including, for example, video programs on demand and other forms of interactive TV, High Definition Television ("HDTV"), graphics databases, multimedia data, and data to and from very high speed supercomputers. Therefore, significant benefits can be derived from CPE devices that interface with broadband network elements, as well as today's existing telephone network elements.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a CPE system and method capable of interfacing with broadband networks as well as today's telephone networks.
Additional desires of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.